Valentine
by Amos Whirly
Summary: [ONESHOT, Post Second Movie] Miss Parker gets a Valentine's card from Debbie.


"Valentine"

The Pretender

By Amos Whirly

     She sat in silence in the all-consuming darkness of her office.  Her blinds were drawn.  Her lamps were off.  The only light came from the hallway and lobby outside her office doors.  A still-burning cigarette lay forsaken in her ashtray, and she held a half-empty glass of brandy which she was nursing slowly.

     Her long, red fingernails clutched the glass so tightly that her knuckles turned whiter than her pale face.

     In her other hand, she held a piece of folded paper.  Amidst the crooked folds and creases was a distorted child's drawing of a dark-haired woman holding hands with a little girl.  The drawing was angular, bearing a closer resemblance to a work by Picasso than an actual image.  A large crooked heart hung over the two crooked people, and large uneven letters above it screamed, "Happy Valentine's Day, Miss Parker!"

     The woman behind the desk set the handmade card on her desk blotter and chugged what remained of the brandy in her glass.

     _Valentine's Day_, she thought ruefully. _What a joke._

     She stood and approached her cabinet, and she poured another glass of the fiery amber liquid.

     _ A day to focus on love, on the people you love, on the people who love you_.

     She snorted into her glass as she took another swig.

     "A wonderful day," she murmured, "at least for people who have someone to love."

     She poured another glass.

     "Who invented this crummy holiday anyway?"

     She returned to her seat.

     _I haven't loved anyone since Tommy.  _

His dead body, stained with blood and propped against her front porch—

_     And before him, it was Mom.  _

A gunshot echoed in her mind, a woman lying limp on the floor of an elevator—

      _And Daddy?_

Watching his back as he leaped from the airplane—

     She scowled darkly, thinking, _Every person I've ever really loved has died._

     She glared out her window in spite of the blinds.

     _I guess that means I don't love Sydney, or he would have died years ago_.

     A dark smile curled up her face.

     _Maybe I should try to love Raines_.

     Suddenly, the smile faded, and she glowered at her brandy glass.

     _I can't believe I just thought that_, she shuddered. _I must be drunk_.

     She finished the last of the brandy in her glass though.

     _I never loved Bridget_, the thought came suddenly to her mind, _and she popped off.  So much for that theory._

She picked up the Valentine's card.

     _I'm just being superstitious_, she thought, eyeing the uneven crayon strokes. "Oh, Debbie," she murmured aloud, staring absently at the paper, "why did you sent me this?  You're too sweet to want anything to do with me."

     Miss Parker ran slender fingers over the hand drawn image, thinking about the first time she had met the girl.  Broots, the technical member of Miss Parker's team, had been unable to find a babysitter for his daughter, Debbie.  He had pleaded until Miss Parker finally gave in and agreed to watch the child until he returned from the sudden trip Mr. Raines had put together.  

     _Those few hours we spent at my house_, Miss Parker thought, still fingering the card, _taught me more about myself than about how much I hated kids.  Hmph.  I think Debbie taught me that having kids wouldn't be so bad.  Someday._

     She glanced at the black and white photograph on her desk.  The image of her mother gazed lovingly back at her.

     "What does this kid see in me?" she mumbled aloud. "I don't get it.  I read her a story.  I braided her hair.  I picked her up that time when Broots got himself in trouble." She slammed the card on the desk. "Why would she send me a Valentine's Day card?  She can't love me, can she?"

     She crossed her arms and leaned back in her chair.

     "I'm not exactly lovable."

     She stood up and gazed into her mirror.  

     Her intense eyes were cloudy, obviously exhausted and verging on inebriated.  Her face was pallid from spending too much time in the dark, accentuated by the dark clothes she wore. 

     "Love," she grumbled. "Love is for the weak.  I can't love anyone.  I can't be weak.  Not here.  Not now.  Not with Raines taking over and Lyle on the warpath.  Not while Jarod's still out there.  Not while life is so dangerous.  I can't take the chance of loving anyone ever again."

     She glared back at her desk where she could still see the open card.

     "But I want to."

     Suddenly, her office doors flung open, and Broots came flying in.

     "Miss Parker!  Miss Parker!" his balding head ran right past her.

     "Here, Broots," he snapped.

     He stopped and rushed up beside her.

     "Miss Parker, it's Jarod!  We've got a sighting in Dover."

     "Dover?  Here?  In Delaware?"

     He ran out of the office still shouting about his discovery, expecting her to be at his heels.

     Miss Parker watched him go.  She returned to her desk, grabbed her gun out of her drawer, and cocked it, staring still at the card on her desk.

     She picked it up.

     "Maybe I'm being superstitious," she mumbled. "Maybe not.  All I know is that I care about you, Debbie."

     She carried the card to the doors of her office.

     "I care about you too much to let you get involved in my life, this hell."

     She dropped the card in the wastebasket by the door and stepped outside.

     The door shut behind her.

     Hardly a moment later, the door burst open again.  Miss Parker stepped purposefully to the trashcan and pulled the card out.  

     She dashed back out the doors, shoving Debbie's card in her shirt pocket.

     Close to her heart.__


End file.
